Monsoon Cup 2012 - Will there be a fairy tale Gilmour finale?

This week Australia’s Peter Gilmour, the four times ISAF World Match Racing champion announced his retirement from the Alpari World Match Racing Tour.

The current Monsoon Cup now reaching the final stages of the qualifying series will in fact be his last event.
These are historic times within the Gilmour family, with son David fighting to reach the quarter finals of this prestigious event. Unfortunately he came up against his father yesterday and there was no quarter given, with a tense prestart battle and the win going to Gilmour Senior.

Now Peter Gilmour is atop the leader board with just a few matches to go before the quarter finals and this 2012 event could have the same kind of fairy tale ending as it had a start.

When the inaugural Monsoon Cup was launched in 2005, Peter Gilmour as a key part of the organising group had been working around the clock. Grabbing around three hours of sleep each night, he became so physically exhausted he was given a saline intravenous drip mid regatta.

He sailed through the round robin, almost on memory, but as the elements of the regatta fell into place Gilmour was able to get some rest and he then went on to a triumphant and extremely popular Monsoon Cup win.

After coming off the water yesterday, winning Christmas Dinner tale bragging rights against David, he was smiling.

We asked him why his Yanmar Racing team was going so well at this event and his thoughts on the Tour and the Monsoon Cup past and present.

‘We are looking for a good final event result, so the concentration is certainly there. What has been helping us so far is the nature of the racing so far this week. Short racing starts, sprints, light conditions, tricky stuff, where experience really counts.

He said ‘Having reached the end of my time on the Tour, it’s the rapid progress the young teams have been making that is most pleasing. It’s a developmental exercise for all the young crews about how fast you can lift at this top level.

'From the Australian side Keith Swinton has been making wonderful progress this season and is well placed in this regatta and for new boys David and his crew are going pretty well, they are definitely in the hunt, they need some polishing and they will get there. Its great to see Taylor Canfield here and firing and the Kiwis are doing well as always.

‘The Tour is in a fabulous pace, it has a very exciting future. The youngsters coming on will do well.

'It’s interesting to look at the America’s Cup where I feel that Jimmy Spithill and Dean Barker, with their very strong Match Racing experience have an enormous advantage over guys like Nathan Outteridge and Loick Peyron who are clearly top sailors but when it gets to one on one are likely to discover they are underskilled.

‘Looking back over the eight years, the Monsoon Cup has gone from being the newest event on the Tour to the flagship and that is very pleasing.

‘The locals were not exactly pro the event in the early days. Now its considered a hallmark event, a keystone in the region’s economic development. Visit Terengganu 2013 is being launched off it, economic corridor development, the skyline with cranes, the maturity of the Pulau Duyong development, its all very gratifying.

‘But right now Yanmar Racing is focused on our last Qualifying match, then on to the quarter finals.’

And will the fairy tale continue with a Gilmour win at Monsoon Cup 2012?